Guard Duty
by DealingDearie
Summary: Loki is let out on Asgardian probation, and Sif is charged with the job of watching over him and making sure he doesn't ruin the chance he's been given. *Thor 2 never happened*


Sif was watchful, perhaps overly so, and was all too capable of catching the slightest change in behavior and mind alike, so capable in fact that Heimdall often spent his time, after the reconstruction of the Bifrost, talking with her at his post.

His golden, observant eyes stared unblinking into the galaxies before them, and in that time Sif saw with a fresh, open perspective, and finally, after so many years of fearing him, she was able to call the gatekeeper her friend.

Maybe that was why Heimdall had suggested her as Loki's guard.

It was a very unwanted position, but one all but forced upon her nonetheless, and Heimdall's recommendation had placed her ever deeper into the small lot of people to choose from.

And Sif had always been such an odd woman in Asgard's eyes.

That was probably why she was chosen.

An odd woman looking after an odd man.

When Loki was released from his prison, a thing made of glass and boundaries and hopelessness, Sif was charged with the duty of keeping the trickster in check and making sure he didn't make a mess of the life he had henceforth squandered on petty vengeance and chaos.

It sounded easier than it actually was.

Sif despised the god, had from a very early age, and thought it was an awful idea for Odin to simply _let Loki out_.

A murderer, walking free and sullying Asgard's good name.

It made her blood pressure rise to even think about it.

What made it all so much worse, though, was Loki's undeniable amusement at her burdensome frustration. He would openly laugh at her when she grew tired of his murmured quips, had to stifle his smirk when she walked with him, keeping a cautious eye on him at all times, and always, _always _felt the need to remind her of the permanency of her duty.

"You're going to be latched to me forever, Lady," he'd comment quietly, seated next to her as they both ate dinner in a more private section of the feast hall, "Odin won't soon consider my crimes rectified."

His grin always managed to unnerve her, and after a while Sif became especially gifted at stifling the chill that snaked down her spine. In the months of forced and uneasy companionship that followed, they fell into a fragile pattern.

Thankfully, Loki's room was encased with a special kind of magic so that he couldn't escape from it, and in his daytime activities, Sif was silently at his side or in the near vicinity, always watching and waiting for him to make the wrong move.

Unfortunately, he never did, and Sif was left without an excuse to do bodily harm to Loki. It was a long, tedious, back-and-forth kind of process-a game, really. Loki knew that Sif hated every second of it, and so prolonged her torment by being on his best behavior, taking not even a single step over the line that had been clearly drawn for him, and she loathed him for it.

It was all a great show to him, and he was the star.

After an infuriatingly long amount of time of Loki being ever the orderly outcast, Sif was growing bitter, and so she suspected that what came after was entirely Loki's doing, aimed at lightening her mood so that he'd have better company.

Always the selfish type, Loki was.

On a day that could be considered boring, in Asgard's standards, Loki requested to see the royal gardens, and so Sif assented, tagging along while he knelt close to the flowers and touched the petals with feather-light nudges, the sun glinting off of the golden metal bands wrapped around his wrists, which effectively rendered his magic useless.

The gardens were Frigga's, and Sif felt a twinge of sympathy as she watched Loki meticulously tend to them, watering them and pulling up the weeds and taking great care to glance at every plant he could, a sad smile ghosting over his features and glinting brightly in his emerald gaze.

She hated him, and yet she couldn't quell that sorrow that overcame her.

A son mourning his mother.

A son remembering his mother.

It was a sad thing to witness.

He walked past a rose bush dotted with white flowers and turned back around to pluck a single rose from it, his fingers brushing against the thorns like they didn't bother him at all, and she caught the dusting of blood across the ivory-colored petals as he lifted his injured hand to stroke them.

"Do you know what hate is, Sif?" Loki asked absently, gazing longingly at the rose held carefully in his grasp, his leather dirtied by the ground beneath his knee. She stared at him for the longest time, trying to realize the meaning of his words, but finally gave up. It was pointless with Loki; he was the master of words. She shook her head, and somehow, he saw the motion, and continued.

"Hate is born within those that once loved too much."

He glanced up at her as her breath caught in her throat, her heart beginning to pound in her chest. She let out a soft sigh, and he squinted against the harsh sunlight bearing down on him, tilting his head.

"Do you…hate me, Lady Sif?"

It was a simple question, and yet it brought with it a series of memories better left untouched, a string of moments in her youth that she'd just as soon forget if she could.

Once, in a time long past, Loki had been the object of her attentions for a long time, the one she'd longed for, the one she loved-and then something changed within him, something darkened and something else gave way, and Sif's fright took from her that fond affection and replaced it with a wary kind of view, a warning signal that went off in her head whenever he was around.

And then that feeling had been proven right, and Sif had buried the memory deep within the past.

But now, there it was, haunting her still as Loki looked up to her, eyes round and searching. She swallowed thickly, and looked down to the rose in his hands, tracing the curve of his long fingers.

"I do," she ground out hoarsely, and she swore that she could hear Loki's sigh, a heavy thing laced with sadness, carried on the midday breeze.

**Based off a prompt given over on Tumblr.**

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